"Train-wreck" doesn't even begin to describe what is starting to happen to the U.S. today with the financial crisis, an onrushing depression, and the failure of George W. Bush's war policy as he is faced down by Iran and the Russian bear.

But in an even broader sense, the West, as a civilization, after a century of world war and the utter failure of global finance capitalism, may have reached its limits.

Those with a vested interest in the status quo dismiss any suggestion that something is wrong. This includes Donald Luskin, author of an article in the Washington Post on Sunday, September 14, titled: "A Nation of Exaggerators: Quit Doling Out That Bad Economy Line."

Luskin writes, "The relentless drumbeat of pessimism in the media and on the campaign trail" is "a virus."

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He continues: "Sure, there are trouble spots in the economy, as the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and jitters about Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, amply demonstrate. And unemployment figures are up a bit, too. None of this, however, is cause for depression -- or exaggerated Depression comparisons."

Continue reading, and you find out who Luskin is: a campaign adviser to John McCain.

We know that "where you stand depends on where you sit" and who pays you for advice. So is a catastrophic meltdown coming?

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If so, probably a majority of the people in the world are thinking: "Serves them right." For the last 500 years, the West has been striding across the globe, armed to the teeth with firearms, warships, bombers, and""more recently""depleted uranium, enforcing the "white man's burden" by enslaving nations and peoples and confiscating everything of value""ranging from art objects to gold to oil""that can be carried away.

The financiers behind it all have also used the diabolically clever practice of creating money "out of thin air" to put the natives everywhere into debt, and, when that has proven insufficient, of doing the same to their own populations.

All this is rationalized by various brands of racism, cultural superiority, social Darwinism, historical determinism, "dominion of the Elect," "God's chosen people," etc. Or, simply, "might makes right."

Some call it "The New World Order."

So today, we Americans, denizens of the "land of the free and the home of the brave," victors in two world wars, bearers of "democracy" to Afghanistan and Iraq, allies of the brave Israelis who hold high the banner of Judeo-Christian values among the ungrateful Palestinians""well, we Americans owe our own bankers almost $70 trillion at most recent count. With the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we owe holders of bad housing loans, including the governments of China, Korea, and Japan, another few trillion.

The bluster of Kissinger, Brzezinski, the Kristols, the Christian fundamentalists, and their paid-off politicians and media millionaires notwithstanding, America""indeed, the entire West""has been found out, perhaps even checkmated on the world stage.

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The Bush/Cheney wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have blackened America's name forever. Iran has called our bluff. In Israel the gap between rich and poor is increasing as much as in the U.S. According to an article by Ian S. Lustick, the Palestinians have stood up to the Israelis to the point where more Jews are emigrating from that country than are moving in, and where those who remain are increasingly huddling around Tel Aviv as a safe haven. (Ian S. Lustick, "Abandoning the Iron Wall: " Israel and the Middle Eastern Muck'," Middle East Policy, Vo. XV, No. 3, Fall 2008.)

In the 1990s, the European bankers used U.S. and NATO forces to dismember Yugoslavia so George Soros and the Rothschilds could gobble up Balkan resources. But that strategy is failing in the Caucasus, where the Russians fought back against the genocidal attack by Dick Cheney's poodle, Mikheil Saakashvili, the New York-trained attorney the CIA got elected as the president of Georgia.

And now the people of Ukraine, the "Little Russians," realizing what the West has in store for them, are rushing back into the Slavic fold and may be only a year or so away from reuniting with their "Great Russian" cousins across the border.

Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on (more...)